To Love Somebody by The Bee Gees
I grew up on this song.
My dad loved The Bee Gees, and we just passed his birthday. It would have been his 87th? I think so.
My dad was a man’s man, and so were The Bee Gees. Good-looking (more or less) Australian guys, macho culture (at the time), singing a song about a girl not treating him/them like a man, because she is not meeting his/their desires. A bit sexist, yup.
And you can see, in the video, how masculine and confident Barry is. He holds his place at the front of his family in that video. I was very surprised to see that it is actually Maurice hitting those “oh no no!” bits. Maurice died first, and never got a lot of attention, but his voice is flawless, and he sounds just like Barry. Robin was often the lead, did you know that? And from this video it appears that Robin must have had dental work done after they had made some money, because he certainly looked much different by the Saturday Night Fever days.
I think The Bee Gees are often dismissed with the whole “Disco Sucks” thing.
First of all, The Bee Gees do not suck; they were very talented singers, and I have a hard time finding a song by them I don’t like, and my dad felt the same.
Second, and I have to say this, loud and proud, DISCO DOES NOT SUCK.
This song is pre-their disco days, but still.
“Disco sucks,” I think, was a way to push out Black artists and other non-white guy groups who had begun to take a serious bite of the rock market. The Bee Gees, well, most American white guys weren’t afraid of The Bee Gees stealing their women. They dismissed them as effeminate. And I think Disco was dismissed for the same thing, but Disco is awesome, and The Bee Gees are awesome too.
And this song, I can feel the angst in it, sexist or not, and I love it. It’s a simple song, but it digs into the soul with it’s tune, and that elevates this song to one I could hear all day long (and, today, I probably will).
While looking for this song today, I found two more amazing versions of it.
First, Janis Joplin.
Fuck, Janis, Grrrrrrl!. “A volatile vial of nitroglycerin,” reads Dick Cavett. Hell yes. I mean, how did she turn it on every single time? How did she know how to riff so flawlessly? How did her body dance from the waist down, and suffer on the cross from the waist up? Damn I love this version, and I never heard it before today.
And, if you didn’t know this about me, I am a huge Janis fan. If you want to karaoke sometime, I’ll do my “Summertime” for you. I do a pretty terrible Janis impersonation, but I feel it when I do it. Janis, man, the rest of us are just amateurs.
And there is one more version I discovered.
And another musical thing you probably didn’t know about me.
Add this to disco, and I may damage my reputation for being cool.
(Wait, you have a reputation for being cool? Fuck yeah I do. )
I like Michael Buble.
I love his voice.
Most of his songs are sappy, but I love his voice. I think he adds something to Sinatra, and I just wish he sang more songs that were worth his time, and less pap.
His voice is great.
And in this video, not only is his voice great, but he’s even got a little sexy-something going on I don’t usually feel about him. It’s a little bit of Andrew Scott.(fuck me… Andrew Scott….)
And clearly he’s channelling the late-great Robert Palmer in this video, so what’s not to like?
Mmmmmm…. mmm.
Enjoy a little dessert Buble on me.
Can you dig it?
